Samantha Roose-Christy is a fundraising and digital media strategist who helps nonprofits grow donor revenue, and consultants build authority and attract clients. She combines a clear understanding of fundraising best practices, great knowledge of digital platforms, and emotional intelligence. She focuses deeply, thinks strategically, and works fast! I recommend her services to you.
I’m grateful to Samantha for adding her voice to this series on Storytelling in fundraising. (Read previous posts here (Juliet Cutler) and here (Paul Hanson)).
Something that often gets lost in storytelling is the goal.
We tell stories to delight others, preserve memories, establish common ground, and even provoke action. Whether we realize it or not, storytelling always comes with a goal outcome.
What do you want your story to do?
In fundraising especially, storytelling is not just about inspiration. It’s about helping people understand why their participation matters and how they can make a meaningful impact.
But most people jump to obsessing over delivery, platform and format before they answer the question that guides everything:
What do you want your story to do?
Your storytelling goal isn’t a footnote; it’s the foundation and determines:
Which story you tell.
How you tell it.
Where you tell it.
Get that wrong and you’ve created “just content” instead of communication that leads to action. This discussion is about how to get it right.
Start With Alignment, Not Format
There’s a longstanding debate around whether traditional or digital storytelling is better.
But here’s a better question to ask: Are my audience, medium, story and desired outcome aligned?
When those things align, storytelling works. When they don’t, even a beautifully crafted story can fall flat.
Here’s how to align them.
Define Your Audience
Who are you actually trying to reach?
Everything flows from who your audience is because it determines:
The story you choose.
The platform you show up on.
The action you’re asking them to take.
When you try to speak to everyone, you sacrifice meaningful connection with the people who actually want to invest in your good work.
The more clearly you understand your audience, the more your story will resonate and lead to your desired outcome.
Choose Your Medium
Medium isn’t just preference — it’s strategy.
Female fitness coach? Instagram may matter more.
Reaching leaders or B2B decision-makers? LinkedIn posts and newsletters is where the conversation happens.
Running a capital campaign or major donor push? Long-form, personal and in-person communication will almost always outperform a social post.
Simply put, your medium is where your audience is already paying attention — not where you’re most comfortable.
That being said, every communication method comes with tradeoffs.
Online:
lower barrier to reach people
higher barrier to meaningful conversation
easier scalability, harder depth
In-person:
higher barrier to get in the room
lower barrier to trust and conversion
slower growth, deeper connection
Neither is better. They’re just different.
The question is: which trade-off fits your season of life, your capacity, and how you actually thrive when you communicate?
The best communicators understand how the two-communication method — digital and in-person — work together. Leveraging that tension is what I help my clients do.
Clarify Your Story
Every story won’t help you reach your audience and desired outcome.
Some stories are built for trust-building. Some for fundraising. Some for teaching. But every story you tell should do two things:
Resonate with your audience,
and lead them toward what you want them to do next.
For example, I once helped develop a fundraising campaign for a summer camp. They brought me two possible stories.
One focused on their foreign language program, which allowed campers who didn’t speak English to fully participate in camp life. The second was about a girl who told her mom that summer camp was where she experienced a real relationship with Jesus for the first time.
The audience for this campaign was primarily camp alumni and pastors — many who had experienced life-changing faith moments at camp themselves.
So we chose the second story.
Not because the first story was weak, but because the second story aligned more closely with the audience and the goal of the campaign.
If we had been raising support specifically for the foreign language program, the first story would have been the right choice.
Different stories serve different purposes.
Finally, Know Yourself
Strategy matters. But so does sustainability.
And as I tell my clients, the strategy you’ll consistently implement beats the ideal strategy you occasionally implement — every time.
So before you build your storytelling strategy, answer one final question: How do you actually communicate best?
Some people come alive on stages.
Some do their best work in writing.
Some are exceptional one-on-one.
Some show up most consistently online.
None are wrong. But pretending you’re wired differently than you are and building a strategy around that fiction is a path to burnout, not a plan for impact.
And if you’re a fundraiser or consultant wearing twelve hats, that matters too. Sustainability isn’t a luxury — it’s part of the strategy.
Unless you have a large team behind you, you don’t need to be everywhere. You need to be:
Where your audience already is.
Asking for the response you actually want.
Communicating in the way you naturally sustain.
Because good storytelling isn’t about using every platform, telling every story, or chasing visibility for its own sake.
It’s about helping the right people see why the work matters — through the right story, in the right medium, with the right message.
That’s alignment.
And that’s when storytelling becomes effective communication instead of just content.
Samantha Roose-Christy is a fundraising and digital media strategist who helps nonprofits grow donor revenue and consultants build authority and attract clients.
Certified in Conversion and Fundraising Copywriting, she’s known for turning mission-driven messaging into measurable results—including a 66% increase in annual campaign income and doubled email engagement rates.
She currently serves as Digital Media Strategist at Flatirons Community Church and works with a select group of nonprofits and consultants ready to grow their impact.
Her Substack is called “The Good List Letter”. Subscribe!
The editor of “TO BE A FUNDRAISER” is Kelly Wendell. Kelly is Coordinator of Communication for South Dakota State University.